Page 206 of Commander’s Mate

“Seriously?”

“You don’t understand.”

“I drank Army coffee.”

“That is not a defense.”

“It means I have survived worse.”

Zoe sipped hers and made a face.

“This tastes like someone described coffee to an alien and the alien got offended.”

Nora drank half her cup anyway.

“We have had protein gel for days. I would drink motor oil if it came in a mug.”

Around us, Halor went on being a city.

That was the problem.

People walked to work.

Children ran after floating toys in a plaza.

A delivery cart rolled past carrying blue fruit in stacked baskets.

Music drifted from somewhere above street level.

A woman argued with a shopkeeper.

An elderly man sat at a table reading something projected above his wrist.

Normal life.

Alien normal.

Still normal.

It hurt more than battle damage.

The warship was too strange to compare with Earth.

Halor was not.

Halor had neighborhoods.

Public transit.

Restaurants.

Apartment towers.

People annoyed by prices.

Mothers telling children to slow down.

Someone somewhere had laundry waiting.